The City of Bloomington still plans to sell the Third Street police station despite legal questions.
Mayor John Hamilton’s administration reaffirmed that at a contentious city council work session Monday.
Hamilton wants to sell the police station for private use — but last week, the relative of a family that sold the land to the city wrote a letter saying the deed requires it be kept in public use.
Deputy Mayor Larry Allen said the city determined last year it could sell the property for private use.
“We had concluded that this land — the deed restriction that was on it, that it could only be used for parks property — did not apply to the police station and the surrounding parking lot,” Allen said.
(From left) Council member Dave Rollo, Deputy Mayor Larry Allen and council member Kate Rosenbarger. (Lucas Gonzalez, WFIU/WTIU News)
Allen met with council members to discuss moving the Bloomington police department to the west part of city hall. Selling the police station would help fund that project.
Some council members said they felt blindsided by last week’s letter because the existence of a deed restriction was not shared with them before they voted to advance the project.
Council member Susan Sandberg, who has long opposed this plan, said she is concerned about a potential lawsuit.
“If they (the owners’ descendants) want to fight the city on the understanding that, ‘Oh, the police station is not part of the park, and therefore we were well within our right to sell it,’ that seems to be kind of up in the air,” Sandberg said.
(From left) Council members Isabel Piedmont-Smith and Susan Sandberg and Council Attorney Stephen Lucas. (Lucas Gonzalez, WFIU/WTIU News)
Allen said the city is in discussions with the original owners’ family and intends to avoid any potential litigation.
The project has garnered backlash from representatives of the local police union and some council members, who are concerned about its safety, feasibility and cost.
Hamilton wants to start construction on city hall in 2024 — but with less than a month left in his term and questions lingering, many feel that he’s rushing the project.
“I am surprised that the administration had more than a year of knowledge of this deed restriction and still thought that they should move forward without informing the council when they were deciding on the sale,” Thomson said.
(From left) Council member Sue Sgambelluri, Mayor-Elect Kerry Thomson and council member Susan Sandberg. (Lucas Gonzalez, WFIU/WTIU News)Caption
Thomson said the city has already made a significant investment in the project and she plans to advance it once in office. However, she wants to do so thoughtfully, as she still has many outstanding fiscal questions.
"My intention is to do some thorough due diligence on the finances here and ensure that we can afford to move forward in the way they have outlined with this particular project," Thomson said. "We already have a tremendous investment, so the city should not look at just throwing it out entirely. We've made an investment; we need to make sure if we are moving forward that we move forward with prudence and understand the financial impacts of this project."
If the police station sale does not go through, Allen said there would still be enough funding to pay for the project from city council-approved bonding of about $30 million in public safety projects.
Doing so might mean sacrificing funding for other projects.
Jordan Canada, president of the local fire union, said money for the remodel of Fire Station #3 on Woodlawn Avenue and for the construction of a new training center could be redirected, based on discussions he had with Hamilton.
“It seems that this administration keeps lowering the bar on the fire priority,” Canada said. “To hear that you’re going to cut from station three and our training, it’s a real slap in the face.”
Responding to Canada’s comments, Allen said the city has no plans to cut any of that funding since it’s still pursuing the sale of the police station.
The sale requires approval from the city council. The council is expected to vote Dec. 13.
“This is the city council’s decision on whether to sell the police station or not,” Allen said. “If they decide not to, it would also be their decision to not potentially approve funds from some other source … there are potentially other ways of going about making up that funding if they wanted to still make all the other projects happen.”
